Putnam Schools Providing Bonuses For School Age Care Workers

Putnam County Schools have funded retention bonuses to help maintain staffing among school age care workers.

Deputy Director of Schools Tim Martin said a $500 incentive will be distributed at the end of February based on number of days worked.

“We are having a lot of trouble with retaining our hourly workers, and so that is an attempt for us to hold on to the people that we got” Martin said. “Maybe in the future help us find more people.”

Martin said workers employed full time during the fall semester qualify. Martin said a second round of the same amount could be distributed in June pending funding.

“We do have some vacancies but like everyone else, we are having a lot of people who don’t show up,” Martin said. “They have a positive COVID contact at home or they get sick themselves, so we’re experiencing a lot of that that causes those people to work more.”

This would be the second retention bonus Putnam Schools has provided this school year. The first being similar bonuses to food service workers.

“With these two groups of people, these people we have a set time of day for this,” Martin said. “So if half the crew shows up, they’ve got to do the whole job in the same amount of time as if the whole crew was there. So you can’t really say I’m going to let people stay over and keep half the kids now and half the kids later. Those people have really been working extra hard and don’t have the opportunity for overtime pay.”

School age care is a day-care service that operates until 6:00 p.m. for parents who can not pick up their students until later.